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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 467 176 PS 030 556 PEEP Annual Report, April 2001-March 2002. TITLE Peers Early Education Partnership, Oxford (England). INSTITUTION 2002-00-00 PUB DATE 41p.; For 2000-2001 Annual Report, see ED 462 142. NOTE AVAILABLE FROM Information Office, Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP), PEEP Centre, Peers School, Sandy Lane West, Littlemore, Oxford 0X4 6JZ, England, United Kingdom. Tel: 01865-395145; Fax: 01865-395140; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.peep.org.uk. Reports PUB TYPE Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Annual Reports; *Early Intervention; Emergent Literacy; Family Programs; Foreign Countries; Home Programs; Language Acquisition; *Parent Education; *Parents as Teachers; Preschool Children; Preschool Education England IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT The goal of England's Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP) is to support early communication and literacy skills and to support parents as their children's first educators through both home- and group- based programs. The program is currently offered to children under 5 years of age and their families in a disadvantaged area of Oxford. This annual report details the partnership's major accomplishments for April 2001 through March 2002, a period spanning PEEP's seventh year. The report highlights progress and particular areas of development, including: (1) delivery in homes, groups, and settings; (2) developing video and audio versions of the 'Learning Together' materials; (3) on-the-ground collaboration with Sure Start program; and (4) Revalidation of Open College Networks parents' accreditation and PEEP evening training accreditation. The report also notes progress in information management, community collaboration, human resources, and the PEEP Research consortium. A draft financial report concludes the report. Appended are a description and rationale for PEEP, child development and family objectives of PEEP, and a summary report of the PEEP 2001 conference. (HTH) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. PEEP ANNUAL REPORT April 2001 March 2002 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND Office of Educational Research and Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Points of view or opinions stated in this INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. C3) Registered Charity No: 1049764 INVESTOR IN PROPI.F. B EST C PY AVAILABLE 47.) CONTENTS Director's overview p.2 1 Peers PEEP p.5 2. National PEEP. 3. p.13 Resources... 4. p.20 Research Consortium p.22 5. Income and expenditure. 6. p.24 Appendices Information about PEEP i) Organisation chart ii) PEEP Trustees, PEEP Management Team, PEEP Advisory Group fir) Child development and family objectives iv) Conference summary report v) 1. Director's overview The main developments during the year have included: A new Business Plan Recruitment of senior staff Re-registration of Birkenhead PEEP for its second year New registration of Know le West Sure Start PEEP (KEEP) Investors in People award PEEP as adult learning PEEP Early Start programmes Survey of national users' views of 'Learning Together' materials by volunteer parent Range of new audio and video recordings National conference During the year forty-eight staff were employed, representing approximately twenty full-time-equivalent staff (see the organisation chart at Appendix ii). both premises and staffing - have been Although capacity issues problematic, Peers PEEP has continued to thrive, while National PEEP has taken off with the development of new training and the establishment of PEEP Learning Ltd as a successful company. The first registered PEEP programme, in Birkenhead, was successfully monitored and re-registered in January, with a very full and extremely interesting report. A second PEEP programme was registered, and an intensive workplan developed, in Know le West in Bristol. During the year funding was secured for the work planned until March 2003. A new PEEP Business Plan was completed in January 2002, reflecting the increasing range and complexity of the project. Incorporated into the new plan are two other plans: the PEEP Learning Ltd Business Plan, and the PEEP Fundraising Plan. There are three strands to this new fund-raising plan: the parents group, which will work not only to raise funds but also to help raise awareness of what PEEP does; accessing local sources of funding; and accessing national sources of funding. Two years ago the post of Peers PEEP Director was created, ensuring that the local project continued strongly while national development got under way. During this year 2001-2002 it became clear that the overall management of PEEP needed to be separated from the management of its national development. In February the Trustees successfully recruited to two new posts: Peter Silva to the post of Chief Executive and Marilyn Ashley as National Director. These two who take up post during the summer of 2002 together with Anna Edwards as Director of Peers PEEP, will make up the new Senior Management Team. In February the project was awarded Investors in People status. In her de- briefing, the assessor commented that, although PEEP was one of the 2 smallest organisations in her assessment experience, it was also one of the most complex, necessarily reflecting in her view the complex implications of its aim and objectives (raising educational attainment in the long term by working with parents, carers and other providers from birth to school). In addition to the Investors in People report and the Birkenhead PEEP report, two others will be completed during June 2002. The first is a report on the running and outcomes of the PEEP/Early Start groups that ran from January to March. (In many of the Basic Skills Agency's Early Start programmes service providers drew on PEEP folders and videos for their sessions, and there was a special category of PEEP/Early Start programmes in Oxfordshire, Derby and the Wirral. The second is a detailed report resulting from a questionnaire survey of the views of national users of PEEP materials and training. This has been carried out by a volunteer parent as part of her Oxford Women's Training Scheme course. Finally in the autumn a third report commissioned by Peers PEEP in order to improve its products and services will be completed. This will be an evaluation of PEEP Link home visiting, and families' views of 'Learning Together' folders and videos. With families in the Peers School area of Oxford PEEP has now developed and piloted a range of 'Learning Together' materials. Major tasks during this year were the production of CD recordings of the 'Learning Together' series of folders, together with a new series of six twenty-minute videos linking with the folders. The sixth, titled 'Feeling good about learning together', is about what PEEP can offer the adults parents, carers and service providers who use the programme. These materials are now beginning to be used in many other places. Work has involved not only the development of materials, but also a focus on how the project works with families, especially the most vulnerable. The Access Project was begun in September 2002 with funding from the Basic Skills Agency, and will continue into the next year as part of PEEP's new work with the Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Learning and Skills Council. In addition a great deal of national training development and piloting has taken place. The Research Consortium continues to expand under the Chairmanship of Professor Kathy Sylva at the Oxford University Department of Educational Studies. In a variety of ways including contributing to the development of the National Framework of Effective Practice to Support Children from Birth to Three PEEP is advocating the importance of supporting families about their children's development at home from birth to school, especially in disadvantaged areas. 5 3 In July 2001 a successful conference was held at Church House Westminster, birth to school: new evidence, new practice, new London, entitled 'Literacy policy?' (The Summary Report can be seen at Appendix v) Professor Christine Pascal concluded: ...... ...... is that we "The key thing which nearly every speaker touched upon can no longer go on ignoring the years from birth to school age; at a policy level, at a practice level or at a research level." From January to March the Basic Skills Agency funded pilot Early Start groups, and a range of 'PEEP Early Start' groups ran in Oxfordshire, Derby and the Wirral. Drawing heavily on PEEP materials and experience, they were based mainly in nurseries, early excellence centres and family centres. a Saturday Dads' group Peers PEEP ran two Early Start groups of our own and a babies group. All groups were a great success (a full report is available) and providers hope to see them running again very soon. The impact of the in raising the confidence of the parents as future learners groups was potent and as active members of their communities. Significant outcomes included : groups of parents who in finding their own voice, felt confident to ask for courses and programmes for themselves the inclusion of parents who had not previously felt welcomed or able to access groups people working together in communities in new ways. PEEP is essentially an adult learning programme about the youngest children. During the year an active partnership has developed both with the Basic Skills Agency, and the Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Learning and Skills Council. Development work continues, with a particular focus in the coming year on the Access Project in Peers PEEP (initially funded by the Basic Skills Agency and in the coming year by the Learning and Skills Council) and on responding to the training and support needs that are emerging in the fast expanding national PEEP operation. This issue, relating both to quality control and to capacity, is particularly challenging. PEEP's new Business Plan concludes: "A 'generation' project - within which today's babies become tomorrow's parents - relates to the kind of ground-breaking, tide-turning development that cannot bear fruit overnight, nor indeed within one or even two terms of government office. This longer-term and wide-ranging perspective is about family and community work that becomes part of the fabric of a It is about breaking cycles of neighbourhood from one generation to the next. deprivation and low expectations, about growing confidence, higher achievement and stronger communities, where families are supported in their neighbourhoods to value and nurture children as tomorrow's citizens. This is the perspective that inspires PEEP staff and volunteers, that drives PEEP development, and that is the rationale for PEEP funding". 4 6 2. Peers PEEP 2.1An overview Progress and particular areas of development this year have been as follows: Establishing PEEP Link as an integral part of Peers PEEP delivery Delivery in homes, groups and settings Information management and analysis Foundation PEEP progress including the further development of Foundation PEEP groups Developing video and audio versions of the 'Learning Together' material Early Start groups, including our first Saturday group Achievement of Investors In People On-the-ground collaboration with Sure Start Leaders taking Early Childhood Studies degree modules at Westminster College at Oxford Brookes University Revalidation of Open College Networks parents' accreditation and PEEP evening training accreditation 2.2 Information management Considerable progress has been made in consolidating our data and information management system, which enables us to review and develop the programme and supply information to The Research Consortium. We are now able to produce a "reach to the community" analysis which shows the most complete picture for PEEP uptake we have ever had, integrating PEEP delivered in homes (Link), in groups, and in settings (playgroups and nursery classes). Analysis of reach in Foundation PEEP is particularly complex because of the variety of forms the delivery takes. The charts below show how many children and their families who were eligible for Peers PEEP participated at different levels, in groups, through Link home visits or in settings, during the period April 2001 to March 2002. Please note that charts for levels One and Two include a complete year's birth cohort, whereas the Baby level chart includes only two terms' birth cohort. 7 5 Overall Community Reach Early PEEP PEEP contact Summer 2001 - Spring 2002 These figures include all children known to PEEP, who live in the Peers PEEP catchment area (approximately 300 per year group). Baby level Attended a PEEP group to m Had a Link home visit 0 No PEEP engagement Ones level Twos level 44% 6 Foundation PEEP Overall Community Reach PEEP contact Summer 2001 Spring 2002 Threes level 14% 22% 0 3s PEEP group Pre-school PEEP Nursery PEEP M Link Home visits 0 No PEEP contact 18% 41% The Threes figures include all children known to PEEP, who live in our catchment area (approximately 300 per year group). (If children received more than one kind of PEEP contact during this period, they are shown in the category in which they had most contact.) Contact in settings with Fours 8% Nursery PEEP ffl Pre-school PEEP M Link Visit At Fours level we contact children via settings in the Peers PEEP catchment area (Nurseries and Pre-schools, both of which take three-and four-year-olds). In a variety of ways, all four- year-olds in these settings receive Learning Together with Fours materials, so there is not a category of 'No PEEP engagement' as there is at other levels. 9 7 Points to note include: The strongest reach is achieved at Baby level and 4s level, with 83% of families with babies taking part and 100% of families with four-year-olds. Across the levels, the percentage of families who had no PEEP contact is 18% We continue to have a rich diversity of families attending our groups and receiving Link visits. This year 31 different languages in addition to English were spoken by families attending our groups. We offer bi-lingual support in our home visits. From April 2001 to March 2002, 20% of the children who attended PEEP free-standing groups were from ethnic minority groups. Visits to the Asian community in the Sure Start area were undertaken jointly with the Sure Start Asian families support team. 2.3 OCN revalidation and fairs We continued to hold Certificate Award Ceremonies each term, with 86 parents receiving an Open College Network Certificate during the year, and a further 5 receiving a Certificate for PEEP staff training. There was a particularly special autumn term ceremony which was held at the newly refurbished Jubilee Hall in Blackbird Leys, with activities organised by both parents and children. During the spring we were making the final video in the series of PEEP videos 'Feeling good about learning together', and the use in the film of the February ceremony highlights the relevance of accreditation in the process of supporting parents not only in relation to their children but for themselves. Open College Networks accreditation comes up for re-validation every five years, and the opportunity to overhaul the way we offer it has meant that we shall now be able to make it available to other areas where PEEP is developing and accreditation is needed. 2.4 PEEP in homes (PEEP Link) The Link home visiting programme is now firmly established as one of the main ways of accessing PEEP support. Parents of babies, ones, twos and threes are all welcoming their annual visit from a PEEP Leader. (Parents of fours receive their folder from their child's First School nursery class.) On a Link visit we deliver the year's 'Learning Together' materials to families, and undertake a practical activity to illustrate how they might be used. The visit is a chance to talk generally about opportunities for supporting children's learning. Delivery staff have been supported to build up their skills and confidence in working within the home and have been trained to work with the PEEP curriculum in this new way. On average 200 Link home visits have taken place a term across levels 0-3. Our management structure and training have been enriched to support this challenging development. A small team of volunteers drawn from families who attend PEEP groups has been delivering seasonal 'Learning Together' materials. They are working with us on new ways to support PEEP work with families who do not attend 8